Take 2. Friday's Guide to Movies & Music. Movie review.

Love And Death In New York

Woody Allen Uncovers A `Manhattan Murder Mystery'

August 20, 1993|By Clifford Terry.

"Manhattan Murder Mystery," Woody Allen's first straight-out comedy since the mid-'80s, opens with the expected love letter to his kind of town. As the credits roll, along with an aerial shot, Bobby Short sings Cole Porter's "I Happen to Like New York."

That done, the film slides into a contemporary version of the old Thin Man/Mr. & Mrs. North comedy capers, as a sophisticated urban couple set out to solve a presumed crime. In this case, it's book editor Larry Lipton (Allen), and his wife, Carol (Diane Keaton), a former advertising executive, who form a contradictory pair. He reads The New York Times, but loves hockey. She reads the Daily News, but loves opera. (He cracks that when he listens to too much Wagner, he gets the urge to conquer Poland.)

Their neighbors are longtime marrieds Paul House (Jerry Adler), who owns a second-run movie house and talks endlessly and boringly about his stamp collection, and Lillian (Lynn Cohen), a devotee of physical fitness. When she is found dead, apparently of a heart attack, Carol grows suspicious-suspicions reinforced when she attends a showing of Billy Wilder's 1944 film noir classic of sex and betrayal, "Double Indemnity." Her partner in suspicion is Ted (Alan Alda, smirky as always), a divorced playwright who has a crush on Carol and shares her enthusiasm not only for murder-solving but for opening a "basically French" restaurant.

Ms. Snoop heightens her sleuthing campaign when she discovers that the couple had purchased twin cemetery plots but that the widower-who she thinks is acting too "perky"-has had his wife's body cremated. Later, she thinks she sees the dead woman on a bus-well, this is New York-and becomes convinced that Paul is slipping around with a young actress (Melanie Norris). Meanwhile, Larry is busy flirting with one of his authors, played with savvy sexiness by Anjelica Huston.

Shot during Allen's continuing period of personal turbulence, "Manhattan Murder Mystery"-co-written by Allen and Marshall Brickman-explores the up and down sides of long-term relationships. (Carol at one point cracks that Larry is getting "stodgy.") It is also a movie about tributes.

His Larry Lipton, unsurprisingly, is a Manhattan urban neurotic-Allen once described himself as being "at two" with nature-who puts down activities like snorkeling and places like Duluth. There also are gags about exercise, penis envy, psychiatrist appointments and New Jersey. Most work; some don't. A particularly funny sequence is set on a stuck elevator, in which Larry gets to act out his claustrophobic inclinations. In a semi-ditzy role, Keaton provides a refreshing presence as her character proceeds with her investigation into the "sinister" circumstances, using phrases like "fuddy-dud."

Unhappily, "Manhattan Murder Mystery" could use more comedy and less mystery. As the movie progresses, it gets sillier rather than wittier. Still, it is nice to get back to the old Woody Allen as a non-brooding director-nothing Bergmanesque here-and it is nice (never mind the off-screen circumstances) to see Diane Keaton up there in place of Mia Farrow.

"Manhattan Murder Mystery"

(STAR)(STAR) 1/2

Directed by Woody Allen; written by Allen and Marshall Brickman; photographed by Carlo Di Palma; production designed by Santo Loquasto; edited by Susan E. Morse; produced by Robert Greenhut. A TriStar Pictures release; opens Friday at Water Tower, Webster Place and outlying theaters. Running time: 1:48. MPAA rating: PG-13.